


Stained

by ReaderJane



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-09
Updated: 2011-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderJane/pseuds/ReaderJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Behind the dumpster</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stained

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Doublemeat Palace  
> Written for the sb_fag_ends prompt: Nicotine Stain  
> Disclaimer: still not mine, alas

He will be ash one day.

This is more true now than it was while he was breathing. Ashes to ashes, the prayerbook says, but if he'd died in the usual way he'd have rotted in a muddy London churchyard. No mud in his future now. By fire or beheading or the Slayer's thrust, he'll go out in a shower of sparks, fade quickly to flakes that the wind will stir into the California dust.

He's dreamed of leaving a legacy of poems; known the dream was rubbish. He's painted a bloody swath across the world. The corpses were buried. Survivors' memories faded. All that remains are dry entries in watchers' journals: a clinical account of devastation.

He's long since stopped imagining children.

He has risen from his grave once. He won't do so again -- but she can. Despite the best efforts of masters and gods, her heart still beats. Her lungs labor as he moves against her, a mute persuasion worked in flesh. _You're alive._ You're alive. In those rare moments when her pleasure crests, the sun comes out. The desert blooms.

Half-hidden behind the stinking dumpster, he presses her to the restaurant's wall. Her face remains impassive. There is so much not to feel. His fingers, splayed beside her shoulders, are stained with nicotine. Her mouth is painted as red as her collar, as red as the irony that keeps his lips unbloodied.

 _Breathe, love. Smile, laugh. You're not a shopgirl. You're not a schoolgirl._

Nothing he seeds will ever grow. She has stained him with unnatural desires: to build, to begin, to save, to heal.

If he can please her well enough. If he can bring light to her eyes. If he can gladden her often enough. He will have written something lasting.

 _Climb out of your grave. Fight. Want. Live, live, live._


End file.
